Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1
R E L IG IOU S
R E S P ON S E S
Before sunrise, members of a Muslim family rise in Malaysia, perform their
purifying ablutions, spread their prayer rugs facing Mecca, and begin their
prostrations and prayers to Allah. In a French cathedral, worshippers line up for their
turn to have a priest place a wafer on their tongue, murmuring, “This is the body of
Christ.” In a South Indian village, a group of women reverently anoint a cylindrical
stone with milk and fragrant sandalwood paste and place around it offerings of
flowers. The monks of a Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery sit cross-legged and
upright in utter silence, broken occasionally by the noise of the kyosaku bat falling on
their shoulders. On a mountain in Mexico, men, women, and children who have
been dancing without food or water for days greet an eagle flying overhead with a
burst of whistling from the small wooden flutes they wear around their necks.
These and countless other moments in the lives of people around the world are
threads of the tapestry we call “religion.” The word is probably derived from the
Latin, meaning “to tie back,” “to tie again.” All of religion shares the goal of tying
people back to something behind the surface of life—a greater reality, which lies
beyond, or invisibly infuses, the world that we can perceive with our five senses.
Attempts to connect with this greater reality have taken many forms. Many of
them are organized institutions, such as Buddhism or Christianity. These institu-
tions are complexes of such elements as leaders, beliefs, rituals, symbols, myths,
scriptures, ethics, spiritual practices, cultural components, historical traditions,
and management structures. Moreover, they are not fixed and distinct categories,
as simple labels such as “Buddhism” and “Christianity” suggest. Each of these
labels is an abstraction that is used in the attempt to bring some kind of order to
the study of religious patterns that are in fact complex, diverse, ever-changing,
and overlapping. In addition, not all religious behavior occurs within institutional
confines. Some spiritual experience is that of individuals who belong to no insti-
tutionalized religion but nonetheless have an inner life of prayer, meditation, or
direct experience of an inexplicable presence.
Religion is therefore such a complex and elusive topic that some contempor-
ary scholars of religion are seriously questioning whether “religion” or “religions”
can be studied at all. They have determined that no matter where they try to grab
the thing, other parts will get away. Nonetheless, this difficult-to-grasp subject is
so central to so many people’s lives and has assumed such great political signifi-
cance in today’s world that we must make a sincere attempt to understand it.
In many cultures and times, religion has been the basic foundation of life, per-
meating all aspects of human existence. But from the time of the European
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Living Religions, Sixth Edition, by Mary Pat Fischer. Published by Prentice-Hall. Copyright © 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc.
2 RELIGIOUS RESPONSES
From candles and oil Enlightenment, religion has become in the West an object to be studied, rather
lamps to sacred fires, than an unquestioned basic fact of life. Cultural anthropologists, sociologists,
light is universally used philosophers, psychologists, and even biologists have peered at religion through
to remind worshippers
of an invisible reality.
their own particular lenses, trying to explain what religion is and why it exists, to
At Gobind Sadan, those who no longer take it for granted.
outside New Delhi, In this introductory chapter, we will make some general observations about
worship at a sacred fire what is called “religion” before trying in the later chapters to understand the
continues twenty-four major traditions known as “religions” practiced around the world today.
hours a day.
Modes of encountering Unseen Reality

How have people of all times and places come to the conclusion that there is some
Unseen Reality, even though they may be unable to perceive it with their ordi-
nary senses? In general, we have two basic ways of apprehending reality: rational
thought and non-rational modes of knowing. To reason is to establish abstract
general categories from the data we have gathered with our senses, and then to
organize these abstractions to formulate seemingly logical ideas about reality.
However, one person may use reason to determine that there is no Unseen
Reality; another may use reason to determine that it does exist. For instance,
the seventeenth-century English rationalist philosopher Thomas Hobbes
(1588–1679) reasoned that God is simply an idea constructed by the human
imagination from ideas of the visible world. His contemporary, the rationalist
French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), asserted that his awareness of
his own existence and his internal reasoning indicated the existence of God.
Some people come to religious convictions indirectly, through the words of
great religious teachers or the teachings of religious tradition. Other people
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
RELIGIOUS RESPONSES 3
develop faith only through questioning. Martin Luther (1483–1546), father of the
Protestant branches of Christianity, recounted how he searched for faith in God
through storms of doubt, “raged with a fierce and agitated conscience.”1
The human mind does not function in the rational mode alone; there are other
modes of consciousness. In his classic study, The Varieties of Religious Experience, the
philosopher William James (1842–1910) concluded:
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one
special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of
screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different . . .
No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other
forms of consciousness quite disregarded.2
In some religions, people are encouraged to develop their own intuitive abili-
ties to perceive spiritual truths directly, beyond the senses, beyond the limits of
human reason, beyond blind belief. This way is often called mysticism. George
William Russell (1867–1935), an Irish writer who described his mystical experi-
ences under the pen name “AE,” was lying on a hillside:
not then thinking of anything but the sunlight, and how sweet it was to drowse
there, when, suddenly, I felt a fiery heart throb, and knew it was personal and
intimate, and started with every sense dilated and intent, and turned inwards, and
I heard first a music as of bells going away . . . and then the heart of the hills was
opened to me, and I knew there was no hill for those who were there, and they
were unconscious of the ponderous mountain piled above the palaces of light, and
Some religions try to

transcend the mundane,
glimpsing what lies
beyond. Others, such as
the Zen Buddhism that
influenced this 18th-
century drawing of The
Meditating Frog, find
unseen reality in the
here and now, intensely
experienced.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
the winds were sparkling and diamond clear, yet full of colour as an opal, as they
glittered through the valley, and I knew the Golden Age was all about me, and it
was we who had been blind to it but that it had never passed away from the
world.3
Encounters with Unseen Reality are given various names in spiritual tra-
ditions: enlightenment, God-realization, illumination, kensho, awakening, self-
knowledge, gnosis, ecstatic communion, coming home. They may arise
spontaneously, as in near-death experiences in which people seem to find them-
selves in a world of unearthly radiance, or may be induced by meditation, fast-
ing, prayer, chanting, drugs, or dancing.
Many religions have developed meditation techniques that encourage intuitive
wisdom to come forth. Whether this wisdom is perceived as a natural faculty
within or an external voice, the process is similar. The consciousness is initially
turned away from the world and even from one’s own feelings and thoughts, let-
ting them all go. Often a concentration practice, such as watching the breath or
staring at a candle flame, is used to collect the awareness into a single, unfrag-
mented focus. Once the mind is quiet, distinctions between inside and outside
drop away. The seer becomes one with the seen, in a fusion of subject and object
through which the inner nature of things often seems to reveal itself. To the frus-
tration of many who try these techniques in search of enlightenment without
seeing immediate results, it seems that we cannot grasp the Unseen Reality solely
by our own efforts. Rather, it grasps us.
[The “flash of illumination” brings] a state of glorious inspiration, exaltation,

intense joy, a piercingly sweet realization that the whole of life is fundamentally
right and that it knows what it’s doing.
Nona Coxhead4
Our ordinary experience of the world is that our self is separate from the world
of objects that we perceive. But this dualistic understanding may be transcended
in a moment of enlightenment in which the Real and our awareness of it become
one. The Mundaka Upanishad says, “Lose thyself in the Eternal, even as the arrow
is lost in the target.” For the Hindu, this is the prized attainment of liberation, in
which one enters into awareness of the eternal reality. This reality is then known
with the same direct apprehension with which one knows oneself. The Sufi
Muslim mystic Abu Yazid in the ninth century CE said, “I sloughed off my self as a
snake sloughs off its skin, and I looked into my essence and saw that ‘I am He.’ ”5
This spontaneous experience of being grasped by Reality is the essential basis
of religion, according to the influential German professor of theology, Rudolf
Otto (1869–1937). The experience is ineffable, “sui generis and irreducible to any
other; and therefore, like every absolutely primary and elementary dictum,
while it admits of being discussed, it cannot be strictly defined.”6 This experience
of the Holy, asserts Otto, brings forth two general responses in a person: a feel-
ing of great awe or even dread, and a feeling of great attraction. These
responses, in turn, have given rise to the whole gamut of religious beliefs and
behaviors.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
A sense of the presence

of the Great Unnamable
may burst through the
seeming ordinariness
of life. (Samuel Palmer,
The Waterfalls, Pistyll
Mawddach, North
Wales, 1835–36.)
Though ineffable, the nature of genuine religious experience is not unpre-

dictable, according to the research of Joachim Wach (1898–1955), a German
scholar of comparative religion. In every religion, it seems to follow a certain pat-
tern: (1) It is an experience of what is considered Unseen Reality; (2) It involves
the person’s whole being; (3) It is the most shattering and intense of all human
experiences; and (4) It motivates the person to action, through worship, ethical
behavior, service, and sharing with others in a religious grouping.
Understandings of Sacred Reality

In the struggle to understand what the mind cannot readily grasp, individuals and
cultures have come to rather different conclusions. Mircea Eliade (1907–1986)
was a very influential scholar who helped to develop the field of comparative
religion. This discipline attempts to understand and compare religious patterns
found around the world. He used the terms “sacred” and “profane”: the profane
is the everyday world of seemingly random, ordinary, and unimportant occur-
rences. The sacred is the realm of extraordinary, apparently purposeful, but gen-
erally imperceptible forces. In the realm of the sacred lie the source of the
universe and its values, and it is charged with great significance. However rel-
evant this dichotomy may be in describing some religions, there are some cul-
tures that do not make a clear distinction between the sacred and the profane.
Many tribal cultures who have an intimate connection with their local landscape
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Buddhism is sometimes referred to as

a nontheistic religion, for its beliefs
do not refer to a personal deity.
Practitioners try to perceive an
unchanging unseen reality.
feel that spiritual power is everywhere; there is nothing that is not sacred. Trees,
mountains, animals—everything is alive with sacred presence.
Another distinction made in the study of comparative religion is that between
“immanent” and “transcendent” views of sacred reality. To understand that
reality as immanent is to experience it as present in the world. To understand it
as transcendent is to believe that it exists outside of the material universe. In
general, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions tend to believe in the sacred as
transcendent (“God is out there”), whereas many Eastern and indigenous tra-
ditions find that sacred Being or beings are present with them in the world.
The concept of sacred Being is another area in which we find great differences
among religious traditions. Many people perceive the sacred as a personal being,
as Father, Mother, Teacher, Friend, Beloved, or as a specific deity. Religions based
on one’s relationship to the Divine Being are called theistic. If the being is wor-
shipped as a singular form, the religion is called monotheistic. If many attributes
and forms of the divine are emphasized, the religion may be labeled polytheis-
tic. Religions that hold that beneath the multiplicity of apparent forms there is
one underlying substance are called monistic. Unseen Reality may also be con-
ceived in nontheistic terms, as a “changeless Unity,” as “Suchness,” or simply as
“the Way.” There may be no sense of a personal Creator God in such under-
standings.
Some people believe that the sacred reality is usually invisible but occasionally
appears visibly in human incarnations, such as Christ or Krishna, or in special
manifestations, such as the flame Moses reportedly saw coming from the center
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
of a bush but not consuming it. Or the deity that cannot be seen is described
in human terms. Theologian Sallie McFague thus writes of God as “lover” by
imputing human feelings to God:
God as lover is the one who loves the world not with the fingertips but totally and
passionately, taking pleasure in its variety and richness, finding it attractive and
valuable, delighting in its fulfilment. God as lover is the moving power of love in
the universe, the desire for unity with all the beloved.7
Throughout history, there have been religious authorities who have claimed
that they worship the only true deity and label all others as “pagans” or “nonbe-
lievers.” For their part, the others apply similar negative epithets to them. When
these rigid positions are taken, often to the point of violent conflicts or forced
conversions, there is no room to consider the possibility that all may be talking
about the same indescribable thing in different languages or referring to different
aspects of the same unknowable Whole.
Atheism is the belief that there is no deity. Following the nineteenth-century
socialist philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883), many communist countries in the
twentieth century discouraged or suppressed religious beliefs, attempting to
replace them with secular faith in supposedly altruistic government. The distin-
guished Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) described atheistic
communism as “an irreligion transmuted into a new political religion, canonized
precisely in the writings of Marx (and the later Lenin) as sacred scripture” with
Marx cast as “the revered prophet of a new world religion.”8 It was not uncom-
mon for people of all faiths in all continents of the world to embrace as a new
religion of sorts Marx’s message of collectivism in contrast to the dehumanizing
effects of modern industry and capitalism, and with it, his stinging criticism of
oppression of the people in the name of religion.
Atheism may also arise from within, in those whose experiences give them no
reason to believe that there is anything more to life than the mundane. One
American college student articulates a common modern form of unwilling atheism:
To be a citizen of the modern, industrialized world with its scientific worldview is to
be, to a certain extent, an atheist. I myself do not want to be an atheist; the cold
mechanical worldview is repugnant to my need for the warmth and meaning that
comes from God. But as I have been educated in the secular, scientistic educational
system—where God is absent but atoms and molecules and genes and cells and
presidents and kings are the factors to be reckoned with, the powers of this world,
not a divine plan or a divine force as my ancestors must have believed—I cannot
wholly believe in God.9
Agnosticism is not the denial of the divine but the feeling, “I don’t know
whether it exists or not,” or the belief that if it exists it is impossible for humans
to know it. Religious scepticism has been a current in Western thought since
classical times; it was given the name “agnosticism” in the nineteenth century by
T. H. Huxley, who stated its basic principles as a denial of metaphysical beliefs and
of most (in his case) Christian beliefs since they are unproven or unprovable, and
their replacement with scientific method for examining facts and experiences.
These categories are not mutually exclusive, so attempts to apply the labels
can sometimes confuse us rather than help us understand religions. In some
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
The concept of God as

an old man with a
beard who rules the
world from the sky has
been supported by the
art of patriarchal
monotheistic traditions,
such as William Blake’s
frontispiece to “Europe,”
The Act of Creation,
1794.
polytheistic traditions there is a hierarchy of gods and goddesses with one highest
being at the top. In Hinduism, each individual deity is understood as an embodiment
of all aspects of the divine. In the paradoxes that occur when we try to apply human
logic and language to that which transcends rational thought, a person may believe
that God is both a highly personal being and also present in all things. An agnostic
may be deeply committed to moral principles. Or mystics may have personal
encounters with the divine and yet find it so unspeakable that they say it is beyond
human knowing. The Jewish scholar Maimonides (1135–1204) asserted that:
the human mind cannot comprehend God. Only God can know Himself. The only
form of comprehension of God we can have is to realize how futile it is to try to
comprehend Him.10
Jaap Sahib, the great hymn of praises of God by the Tenth Sikh Guru, Guru
Gobind Singh, consists largely of the negative attributes of God, such as these:
Salutations to the One without colour or hue,

Salutations to the One who hath no beginning.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Salutations to the Impenetrable,

Salutations to the Unfathomable . . .
O Lord, Thou art Formless and Peerless
Beyond birth and physical elements. . . .
Salutations to the One beyond confines of religion. . . .
Beyond description and Garbless
Thou art Nameless and Desireless.
Thou art beyond thought and ever Mysterious.11
Some people believe that the aspect of the divine that they perceive is the only
one. Others feel that there is one being with many faces, that all religions come
from one source. Bede Griffiths (1906–1993), a Catholic monk who lived in a
community in India, attempting to unite Eastern and Western traditions, was one
who felt that if we engage in a deep study of all religions we will find their
common ground:
In each tradition the one divine Reality, the one eternal Truth, is present, but it is
hidden under symbols. . . . Always the divine Mystery is hidden under a veil, but
each revelation (or “unveiling”) unveils some aspect of the one Truth, or, if you like,
the veil becomes thinner at a certain point. The Semitic religions, Judaism and
Islam, reveal the transcendent aspect of the divine Mystery with incomparable
power. The oriental religions reveal the divine Immanence with immeasurable
depth. Yet in each the opposite aspect is contained, though in a more hidden way.12
Given the centrality in religions of religious experiences, in this book we will
keep delving into them in order to try to understand the various religions that are
practiced today. To use Mircea Eliade’s term, we will be exploring the phenom-
enology of religion—its specifically sacred aspects—rather than explaining reli-
gions only in terms of other disciplines such as history, politics, economics,
sociology, or psychology. This involves an appreciative investigation of religious
phenomena in order to comprehend their spiritual intention and meaning. We
will also strive for “thick description,” a term used by the cultural anthropologist
Clifford Geertz, not only reporting outward behaviors but also attempting to
explain their meaning for believers.
Worship, symbol, and myth

Many of the phenomena of religion are ways of worship, symbols, and myths.
Worship of the sacred consists in large part of attempts to express reverence and
perhaps to enter into communion with that which is worshipped or to request its
help in ill health, disharmony, poverty, or infertility. Around the world, rituals,
sacraments, prayers, and spiritual practices are used to create a sacred atmosphere
or state of consciousness necessary to convey the requests for help, to bring some
human control over things which are not ordinarily controllable (such as rain-
fall), to sanctify and explain the meaning of major life stages such as birth,
puberty, marriage, and death, or to provide spiritual instruction for the people.
When such worshipful actions are predictable and repeated rather than spon-
taneous, they are known as rituals. Religious rituals usually involve repetition,
specific intentions, patterned performance, traditional meanings, and purposeful-
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
ness. Group rituals may be conducted by priests or other

ritual specialists or by the people themselves. Either way,
there may be actions such as recitation of prayers, chants,
scriptures or stories, singing, dancing, sharing of food, spiri-
tual purification by water, lighting of candles or oil lamps,
and offerings of flowers, fragrances, and food to the divine.
Professor Antony Fernando of Sri Lanka explains that when
food offerings are made to the deities:
Even the most illiterate person knows that in actual fact no god
really picks up those offerings or is actually in need of them. What
people offer is what they own. Whatever is owned becomes so close
to the heart of the owner as to become an almost integral part of
his or her life. Therefore, when people offer something, it is, as it
were, themselves they offer. . . . Sacrifices and offerings are a
dramatic way of proclaiming that they are not the ultimate
possessors of their life and also of articulating their determination
to live duty-oriented lives and not desire-oriented lives.13
What religions attempt to approach is beyond human utter-
ance. Believers build statues and buildings through which to
worship the divine, but these forms are not the divine itself.
Because people are addressing the invisible, it can be suggested
only through metaphor. Deepest consciousness cannot speak
the language of everyday life; what it knows can be suggested
only in symbols—images borrowed from the material world
Many religions use that are similar to ineffable spiritual experiences. For example, attempts to allude
ritual cleansing with to spiritual merger with Unseen Reality may borrow the language of human love.
water to help remove The great thirteenth-century Hindu saint Akka Mahadevi sang of her longing for
inner filth that obscures
awareness of Ultimate union with the Beloved by using powerful symbolic language of self-surrender:
Reality.
Like a silkworm weaving her house with love
From her marrow and dying in her body’s threads
Winding tight, round and round, I burn
Desiring what the heart desires. 15
Our religious ceremonies are but the shadows of that great universal worship
celebrated in the heavens by the legions of heavenly beings on all planes, and our
prayers drill a channel across this mist separating our earthbound plane from the
celestial ones through which a communication may be established with the powers
that be.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan14
Tracing symbols throughout the world, researchers find many similarities in their
use in different cultures. Unseen Reality is often symbolized as a Father or Mother,
because it is thought to be the source of life, sustenance, and protection. It is fre-
quently associated with heights, with its invisible power perceived as coming from
a “place” that is spiritually “higher” than the material world. The sky thus becomes
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
heaven, the abode of the god or gods and perhaps also the pleasant realm to which
good people go when they die. A vertical symbol—such as a tree, a pillar, or a moun-
tain—is understood as the center of the world in many cultures, for it gives physi-
cal imagery to a connection between earth and the unseen “heavenly” plane. The
area beneath the surface of the earth is often perceived as an “underworld,” a rather
dangerous place where life goes on in a different way than it does on the surface.
Some theorists assert that in some cases these common symbols are not just
logical associations with the natural world. Most notably, the psychologist Carl
Jung (1875–1961) proposed that humanity as a whole has a collective uncon-
scious, a global psychic inheritance of archetypal symbols from which geographi-
cally separate cultures have drawn. These archetypes include such symbolic
characters as the wise old man, the great mother, the dual mothers, the original
man and woman, the hero, the shadow, and the trickster.
Extended metaphors may be understood as allegories—narratives that use
concrete symbols to convey abstract ideas. The biblical book attributed to the
Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, for instance, is full of such allegorical passages. In one he
This symbolic
representation of a
World Tree comes from
18th-century Iran. It is
conceived as a tree in
Paradise, about which
the Prophet Muhammad
reportedly said, “God
planted it with His own
hand and breathed His
spirit into it.”
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
says that God’s spirit led him to a valley full of dry bones. As he watched and spoke
as God told him, the bones developed flesh and muscles, became joined together
into bodies, and rose to their feet. The voice of God explains the allegorical mean-
ing: the bones represent the people of Israel, who have been abandoned by their
self-serving leaders and become scattered and preyed upon by wild beasts, like the
sheep of uncaring shepherds. God promises to dismiss the shepherds, raise the
fallen people and restore them to the land of Israel, where they will live peace-
fully under God’s protection (Ezekiel 34–37). Such passages, even though alle-
gorical, may assume great significance in a people’s self-understanding.
TEACHING STORY
Descendants of the Eagle

A long time ago, a really long time when the world When all the people were killed so many
was still freshly made, Unktehi the water monster generations ago, one girl survived, a beautiful girl. It
fought the people and caused a great flood. Perhaps happened this way: When the water swept over the
the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, was angry with us hill where they tried to seek refuge, a big spotted
for some reason. Maybe he let Unktehi win out eagle, Wanblee Galeshka, swept down and let her
because he wanted to make a better kind of human grab hold of his feet. With her hanging on, he flew
being. to the top of a tall tree which stood on the highest
The waters got higher and higher. Finally stone pinnacles in the Black Hills. That was the
everything was flooded except the hill next to the eagle’s home. It became the only spot not covered
place where the sacred red pipestone quarry lies with water. If the people had gotten up there, they
today. The people climbed up there to save would have survived, but it was a needle-like rock.
themselves, but it was no use. The water swept over Wanblee kept that beautiful girl with him and
that hill. Waves tumbled the rocks and pinnacles, made her his wife. There was a closer connection
smashing them down on the people. Everyone was then between people and animals, so he could do
killed, and all the blood jelled, making one big pool. it. The eagle’s wife became pregnant and bore him
The blood turned to pipestone and created the twins, a boy and a girl. She was happy, and said,
pipestone quarry, the grave of those ancient ones. “Now we will have people again. Washtay, it is
That’s why the pipe, made of that red rock, is so good.” The children were born right there, on top
sacred to us. Its red bowl is the flesh and blood of of that cliff. When the waters finally subsided,
our ancestors, its stem is the backbone of those Wanblee helped the children and their mother
people long dead, the smoke rising from it is their down from his rock and put them on the earth,
breath. I tell you, that pipe comes alive when used telling them: “Be a nation, become a great Nation—
in a ceremony; you can feel the power flowing from the Lakota Oyate.” The boy and girl grew up. He
it. was the only man on earth, she was the only
Unktehi, the big water monster, was also turned woman of child-bearing age. They married; they
to stone. Maybe Tunkashila, the Grandfather Spirit, had children. A nation was born.
punished her for making the flood. Her bones are in So we are descended from the eagle. We are an
the Badlands now. Her back forms a long, high eagle nation. That is good, something to be proud
ridge, and you can see her vertebrae sticking out in of, because the eagle is the wisest of birds. He is the
a great row of red and yellow rocks. I have seen Great Spirit’s messenger; he is a great warrior. That
them. It scared me when I was on that ridge, for I is why we always wore the eagle plume and still
felt Unktehi. She was moving beneath me, wanting wear it.
to topple me. As told by Lame Deer to Richard Erdoes16
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Symbols are also woven together into myths—the symbolic stories that com-
munities use to explain the universe and their place within it. Like many cul-
tures, Polynesians tell a myth of the world’s creation in which the world was
initially covered with water and shrouded in darkness. When the Supreme Being,
Io, wanted to rise from rest, he uttered words that immediately brought light into
the darkness. Then at his word, the waters and the heavens were separated, the
land was shaped, and all beings were created.
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987), who carried out extensive analysis of myths
around the world, found that myths have four primary functions: mystical (evok-
ing our awe, love, wonder, gratitude); cosmological (presenting explanations of
the universe based on the existence and actions of spiritual powers or beings);
sociological (adapting people to orderly social life, teaching ethical codes); and
psychological (opening doors to inner exploration, development of one’s full
potential, and adjustment to life cycle changes). Understood in these senses,
myths are not falsehoods or the work of primitive imagination; they can be
deeply meaningful and transformational, forming a sacred belief structure that
supports the laws and institutions of the religion and the ways of the community,
as well as explaining the people’s place within the cosmos. Campbell paid par-
ticular attention to myths of the hero’s journey, in which the main character is
separated from the group, undergoes hardships and initiation, and returns bear-
ing truth to the people. Such stories, he felt, prepare and inspire the listener for
the difficult inward journey that leads to spiritual transformation:
It is the business of mythology to reveal the specific dangers and techniques of the
dark interior way from tragedy to comedy. Hence the incidents are fantastic and
“unreal”: they represent psychological, not physical, triumphs. The passage of the
mythological hero may be overground, [but] fundamentally it is inward—into
depths where obscure resistances are overcome, and long lost, forgotten powers are
revivified, to be made available for the transfiguration of the world.17
Absolutist and liberal interpretations

Within each faith people often have different ways of interpreting their traditions.
The orthodox stand by an historical form of their religion, strictly following its
established practices, laws, and creeds. Those who resist contemporary influences
and affirm what they perceive as the historical core of their religion could be called
absolutists. In our times, many people feel that their identity as individuals or as
members of an established group is threatened by the sweeping changes brought
by modern industrial culture. The breakup of family relationships, loss of geo-
graphic rootedness, decay of clear behavioral codes, and loss of local control may
be very unsettling. To find stable footing, some people may try to stand on selec-
ted religious doctrines or practices from the past. Religious leaders may encourage
this trend toward rigidity by declaring themselves absolute authorities or by telling
the people that their scriptures are literally and exclusively true. They may
encourage antipathy or even violence against people of other religious traditions.
The term fundamentalism is often applied to this selective insistence on parts
of a religious tradition and to violence against people of other religions. This use
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
of the term is misleading, for no religion is based on hatred of other people and
because those who are labeled “fundamentalists” may not be engaged in a return
to the true basics of their religion. A Muslim “fundamentalist” who insists on the
veiling of women, for instance, does not draw this doctrine from the foundation
of Islam, the Holy Qur’an, but rather from historical cultural practice in some
Muslim countries. A Sikh “fundamentalist” who concentrates on externals, such
as wearing a turban, sword, and steel bracelet, overlooks the central insistence of
the Sikh Gurus on the inner rather than outer practice of religion. A Hindu “fun-
damentalist” who objects to the presence of Christian missionaries working
among the poor ignores one of the basic principles of ancient Indian religion,
which is the tolerant assertion that there are many paths to the same universal
truth. Rev. Valson Thampu, editor of the Indian journal Traci, writes that this
selective type of religious extremism “absolutises what is spiritually or ethically
superfluous in a religious tradition. True spiritual enthusiasm or zeal, on the other
hand, stakes everything on being faithful to the spiritual essence.”18
A further problem with the use of the term “fundamentalism” is that it has a
specifically Protestant Christian connotation. The Christian fundamentalist move-
ment originated in the late nineteenth century as a reaction to liberal trends, such
as historical-critical study of the Bible, which will be explained below. Other
labels may, therefore, be more cross-culturally appropriate, such as “absolutist,”
“extremist,” or “reactionary,” depending on the particular situation.
Those who are called religious liberals take a more flexible approach to reli-
gious tradition. They may see scriptures as products of a specific culture and time
rather than the eternal voice of truth, and may interpret passages metaphorically
rather than literally. If activists, they may advocate reforms in the ways their
religion is officially understood and practiced. Those who are labeled heretics
publicly assert controversial positions that are unacceptable to the orthodox
establishment. Mystics are guided by their own spiritual experiences, which may
coincide with any of the above positions.
Historical–critical study of scriptures

While conservatives tend to take their scriptures and received religious traditions
as literally and absolutely true, liberals have for several centuries been engaged in
a different approach to understanding their own religions and those of others.
Non-faith-based research methods reveal that scriptures seem to be a mixture of
polemics against opponents of the religion, myths, cultural influences, ethical
instruction, later interpolations, mistakes by copyists, literary devices, actual his-
tory, and genuine spiritual inspiration.
To sort out these elements, the Bible—and more recently, scriptures of other
religions—has been analyzed objectively as a literary collection written within
certain historical and cultural contexts, rather than as the absolute word of God.
This process began at the end of the eighteenth century and continues today. One
area of research is to try to determine the original or most reliable form of a par-
ticular text. Another focus is ferreting out the historical aspects of the text, with
help from external sources such as archaeological findings, to determine the his-
torical setting in which it was probably composed, its actual author or authors,
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
and possible sources of its material, such as oral or written traditions. Such
research may conclude that material about a certain period may have been writ-
ten later and include perspectives from that later period, or that a text with one
person’s name as author may actually be a collection of writings by different
people. A third area of research asks, “What was the intended audience?” A fourth
examines the language and meanings of the words. A fifth looks at whether a
scripture or passage follows a particular literary form, such as poetry, legal code,
miracle story, allegory, parable, hymn, narrative, or sayings. A sixth focuses on the
redaction, or editing and organizing of the scripture and development of an
authorized canon designed to speak not only to the local community but also to a
wider audience. Yet another approach is to look at the scripture in terms of its uni-
versal and contemporary relevance, rather than its historicity.
Although such research attempts to be objective, it is not necessarily under-
taken with sceptical intentions. To the contrary, these forms of research are
taught in many seminaries as ways of reconciling faith with reason.
The encounter between science

and religion
Divisions among absolutist, liberal, and sceptical interpretations of religion are
related to the development of modern science. Like religion, science is also
engaged in searching for universal principles that explain the facts of nature. The
two approaches have influenced each other since ancient times, when they were
not seen as separate endeavors. In both East and West, there were continual
attempts to understand reality as a whole.
In ancient Greece, source of many “Western” ideas, a group of thinkers who are
sometimes called “nature philosophers” tried to understand the world through
their own perceptions of it. By contrast, Plato (c. 427–347 BCE) distrusted the testi-
mony of the human senses. He thus made a series of distinctions: between what is
perceived by the senses and what is accessible through reason, between body and
soul, appearance and reality, objects and ideas. In Plato’s thought, the soul was
superior to the body, and the activity of reason preferable to the distraction of the
senses. This value judgment dominated Western thought through the Middle Ages,
with its underlying belief that all of nature had been created by God for the sake of
humanity.
In the seventeenth century, knowledge of nature became more secularized
(that is, divorced from the sacred) as scientists developed models of the universe
as a giant machine. Its ways could be discovered by human reason, by studying
its component parts and mathematically quantifying its characteristics. However,
even in discovering such features, many scientists regarded them as the work of
a divine Creator or Ruler. Isaac Newton (1642–1727), whose gravitational theory
shaped modern physics, speculated that space is eternal because it is the emana-
tion of “eternal and immutable being.” Drawing on biblical quotations, Newton
argued that God exists everywhere, containing, discerning, and ruling all things.
During the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, rational ways of knowing
were increasingly respected, with a concurrent growing scepticism toward
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
The Hubble space

telescope reveals an
unimaginably vast
cosmos, with billions
of galaxies in continual
flux. The Eagle Nebula
shown here is giving
birth to new stars in
“pillars of creation”
which are 6 trillion
miles high.
claims of knowledge derived from such sources as divine revelation or illumi-

nated inner wisdom. The sciences were viewed as progressive; some thinkers
attacked institutionalized religions and dogma as superstitions. According to
scientific materialism, which developed during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, the supernatural is imaginary; only the material world exists.
An influential example of this perspective can be found in the work of the
nineteenth-century philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872). He reasoned
that deities are simply projections, objectifications of human qualities such as
power, wisdom, and love onto an imagined cosmic deity outside ourselves. Then
we worship it as Supreme and do not recognize that those same qualities lie
within ourselves; instead, we see ourselves as weak and sinful. Feuerbach devel-
oped this theory with particular reference to Christianity as he had seen it.
Following this theory of the divine as a projection of human qualities and
emotions, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856–1938) described religion as a col-
lective fantasy, a “universal obsessional neurosis”—a replaying of our loving and
fearful relationships with our parents. Religious belief gives us a God powerful
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
enough to protect us from the terrors of life, and will reward or punish us for obe-
dience or nonobedience to social norms. From Freud’s extremely sceptical point
of view, religious belief is an illusion springing from people’s infantile insecurity
and neurotic guilt; as such it closely resembles mental illness.
Other scientific materialists believe that religions have been created or at least used
to manipulate people. Historically, religions have often supported and served secular
power. Karl Marx argued that a culture’s religion—as well as all other aspects of its
social structure—springs from its economic framework. In Marx’s view, religion’s
origins lie in the longings of the oppressed. It may have developed from the desire to
revolutionize society and combat exploitation, but in failing to do so, it became oth-
erworldly, an expression of unfilled desires for a better, more satisfying life:
Man makes religion: religion does not make man. . . . The religious world is but
the reflex of the real world. . . . Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the
sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium
of the people. . . .19
According to Marx, not only do religions pacify people falsely; they may them-
selves become tools of oppression. For instance, he charged Christian authorities of
his times with supporting “vile acts of the oppressors” by explaining them as due
punishment of sinners by God. Other critics have made similar complaints against
Eastern religions that blame the sufferings of the poor on their own misdeeds in
previous lives. Such interpretations and uses of religious teachings lessen the per-
ceived need for society to help those who are oppressed and suffering. Marx’s ideas
thus led toward atheistic communism, for he had asserted, “The abolition of religion
as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness.”20
While scientific materialism ultimately led toward the political system of com-
munism in which atheism was taught as the only rational view of religion, the old
unitary concepts of science and religion received another serious challenge in
1859, when the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) published The Origin of
Species, a work that propounded the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Darwin demonstrated that certain genetic mutations give an organism a competi-
tive advantage over others of its species, and thus its lineage is naturally more likely
to survive. According to Darwin’s theory, over great lengths of time this process has
directed the development of all forms of life. The theory of natural selection directly
contradicted a literal understanding of the biblical Book of Genesis, in which God
is said to have created all life in only six days. By the end of the nineteenth century,
all such beliefs of the Judeo-Christian tradition were being questioned. The
German philosopher Nietzsche (1844–1900) proclaimed, “God is dead!”
However, as science has progressed during the twentieth and twenty-first cen-
turies, it has in some senses moved back toward a more nuanced understanding
of religious belief. Science itself is now being questioned. Scientists have given up
trying to find absolute certainties. From contemporary scientific research, it is clear
that the cosmos is mind-boggling in its complexity and that what we perceive with
our five senses is not Ultimate Reality. For instance, the inertness and solidity of
matter are only illusions. Each atom consists mostly of empty space with tiny
particles whirling around in it. These subatomic particles—such as neutrons, pro-
tons, and electrons—cannot even be described as “things.” Twentieth-century
theories of quantum mechanics, trying to account for the tiniest particles of matter,
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
uncovered the Uncertainty Principle: that the position and velocity of a subatomic
particle cannot be simultaneously determined. These particles behave like energy
as well as like matter, like waves as well as like particles. Their position can be
determined only statistically. Their behaviors can best be described in terms of a
dynamic, interdependent system which includes the observer. Human conscious-
ness is inextricably involved in what it thinks it is “objectively” studying. As physi-
cist David Bohm puts it, “Everything interpenetrates everything.”21
Our own bodies appear relatively solid, but they are in a constant state of flux
and interchange with the environment. Our eyes, ears, noses, tongues, and skin do
not reveal absolute truths. Rather, our sensory organs may operate as filters, select-
ing from a multi-dimensional universe only those characteristics that we need to
perceive in order to survive. Imagine how difficult it would be simply to walk across
a street if we could see all the electromagnetic energy in the atmosphere, such as x-
rays, radio waves, gamma rays, and infrared and ultraviolet light, rather than only
the small band of colors we see as the visible spectrum. Though the sky of a starry
night appears vast to the naked eye, the giant Hubble telescope placed in space has
revealed an incomprehensibly immense cosmos whose limits have not been found.
It contains matter-gobbling black holes, vast starmaking clusters, inter-galactic col-
lisions, and cosmic events that happened billions of years ago, so far away that their
light is just now being captured by our most powerful instruments for examining
what lies far beyond our small place in this galaxy. We know that more lies beyond
what we have yet been able to measure. And even our ability to conceive of what
we cannot sense may perhaps be limited by the way our brain is organized.
As science continues to question its own assumptions, various new hypotheses
are being suggested about the nature of the universe. “Superstring theory” proposes
that the universe may not be made of particles at all, but rather of tiny vibrating
strings and loops of strings. According to Superstring theory, whereas we think we
are living in four dimensions of space and time, there may be at least ten dimen-
sions, with the unperceived dimensions “curled up” or “compactified” within the
four dimensions that we can perceive. According to another current theory, the
cosmos is like a soccer ball, a finite closed system with many facets.
New branches of science are finding that the universe is not always predictable,
nor does it always operate according to human notions of cause and effect. And
whereas scientific models of the universe were until recently based on the
assumption of stability and equilibrium, physicist Ilya Prigogine observes that
“today we see instability, fluctuations, irreversibility at every level.”22
Science cannot accurately predict even the future orbits of planets within this
solar system, for all the relevant factors will never be known to human
researchers. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann says that we are “a small speck of cre-
ation believing it is capable of comprehending the whole.”23
Contemporary physics approaches metaphysics in the work of physicists such
as David Bohm. He describes the dimensions we see and think of as “real” as the
explicate order. Behind it lies the implicate order, in which separateness resolves into
unbroken wholeness. Beyond may lie other subtle dimensions, all merging into
an infinite ground that unfolds itself as light. This scientific theory is very similar
to descriptions by mystics from all cultures about their intuitive experiences of the
cosmos. Indeed, Eastern religious traditions long ago recognized the value of per-
ception and reason for the acquisition of ordinary, utilitarian knowledge, but dis-
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
counted their use for the acquisition of transcendent knowledge of the mystery of
being, which they hold, can be apprehended only through spiritual experience.
The most beautiful and profound emotion that we can experience is the sensation
of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To
know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest
wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only
in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true
religiousness. . . . A human being is part of the whole. . . . He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures, and the whole
[of] nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein24
One of the major conflicts between science and religion is that between reli-
gious concepts of intentional divine creation and the scientific concept of a uni-
verse evolving mechanistically by processes such as genetic mutations and
random combinations of elements. Scientists are continually revealing a uni-
verse whose perfections are suggestive of purposefulness. They have found, for
instance, that stars could never have formed if the force of gravity were ever so
slightly stronger or weaker. Biologists find that the natural world is an intricate
harmony of beautifully elaborated, interrelated parts. Even to produce the
miniature propeller that allows a tiny bacterium to swim, some forty different
proteins are required. The huge multinational Human Genome Project has dis-
covered that the basic genetic units that are found in all life forms are repeated Some contemporary
3.1 billion times in complex combinations to create human beings. scientists feel that the
The question arises: Can the complex maps that produce life be the conse- perfect details of the
quences of chance arrangements of atoms, or are they the result of deliberate natural world cannot
have arisen without
design by some First Cause? Current research has demonstrated that the devel- some kind of guiding
opment of certain complex biochemical systems, such as the Krebs citric acid intelligence in the
cycle, which unleashes the chemical energy stored in food and makes it available cosmos.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
to support life, can be explained by Darwinian mechanics. Some feel that evol-
ution theory presupposes blind, uncaring mechanics, since so many species that
have arisen have become extinct. The feeling is that if there were a Creator God,
how could that God be so wasteful or cruel? However, the theory of evolution
does not necessarily conflict with religious beliefs, if both are examined carefully.
Biology professor Kenneth Miller proposes that:
Evolution is certainly not so “cruel” that it cannot be compatible with the notion of
a loving God. All that evolution points out is that every organism that has ever
lived will eventually die. This is not a special feature of Darwinian theory, but an
observable, verifiable fact. The driving force behind evolutionary charge is
differential reproductive success, the fact that some organisms leave more offspring
than others. Yes, the struggle for existence sometimes involves competition and
predation, but just as often it involves cooperation, care, and extraordinary beauty.25
Geneticist Francis Collins, Director of the United States’ National Human
Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, is both a serious
scientist and a “serious” Christian. He does not find the two facets to his life
incompatible. Rather, he says:
When something new is revealed about the human genome, I experience a feeling of
awe at the realization that humanity now knows something only God knew before.
It is a deeply moving sensation that helps me appreciate the spiritual side of life,
and also makes the practice of science more rewarding.26
According to contemporary “Big Bang” theory, the entire cosmos originated
from one point in an explosion whose force is still expanding. Astronomer Fred
Hoyle (1915–2001), who originated the term “Big Bang,” cautioned that it may
not have been a chance happening:
The universe has to know in advance what it is going to be before it knows how to start
itself. For in accordance with the Big Bang Theory, for instance, at a time of 10 [to the
minus 43] seconds the universe has to know how many types of neutrino there are
going to be at a time of 1 second. This is so in order that it starts off expanding at the
right rate to fit the eventual number of neutrino types. . . . An explosion in a junkyard
does not lead to sundry bits of metal being assembled into a working machine.27
Religious beliefs that, if interpreted literally, seem to be contradicted by scien-
tific fact can instead be interpreted as belonging to the realm of myth. Myths give
us symbolic answers to ultimate questions that cannot be answered by empirical
experience or rational thought, such as “What are we here for?”
At the cutting edge of research, scientists themselves find they have no ulti-
mate answers that can be expressed in scientific terms. The renowned theoretical
physicist Stephen Hawking asks, “What is it that breathes fire into the equations
and makes a universe for them to describe?”28
Women and the feminine in religions

Another long-standing issue in the sphere of religion is the exclusion of women
and the feminine in favor of male-dominated systems. According to some current
though controversial theories, many of the myths surviving in today’s religions
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
may be related to the suppression of early female-oriented religions by later male-

oriented religious systems. Archaeological evidence from many cultures was re-
interpreted during the twentieth century as suggesting that worship of a female
high goddess was originally widespread. Although there were, and are now, cul-
tures that did not ascribe gender or hierarchy or personality to the divine, some
that did may have seen the highest deity as a female.
Just as today’s male high deity goes by different names in different religions (God,
Allah), the Great Goddess had many names. Among her many identities, she was
Danu or Diti in ancient India, the Great Mother Nu Kwa of China, the Egyptian
cobra goddess Ua Zit, the Greek earth goddess Gaia, the sun goddess Arinna of
Turkey, Coatlique the Mother of Aztec deities, Queen Mother Freyja of the
Scandinavians, Great Spider Woman of the Pueblo peoples of North America, and
Mawu, omnipotent creator of the Dahomey. A reverent address to Ishtar, an import-
ant Mesopotamian goddess, dating from some time between the eighteenth and sev-
enth centuries BCE suggests some of the powers ascribed to her:
Unto Her who renders decision, Goddess of all things. Unto the Lady of Heaven and
Earth who receives supplication; Unto Her who hears petition, who entertains
prayer; Unto the compassionate Goddess who loves righteousness; Ishtar the Queen,
who suppresses all that is confused. To the Queen of Heaven, the Goddess of the
Universe, the One who walked in terrible Chaos and brought life by the Law of
Love; And out of Chaos brought us harmony.29
Temples and images that seem to have been devoted to worship of the goddess
have been found in almost every Neolithic and early historic archaeological site in
Europe and West Asia. She was often symbolically linked with water, serpents,
birds, eggs, spirals, the moon, the womb, the vulva, the magnetic currents of the
earth, psychic powers, and the eternal creation and renewal of life. In these agri-
cultural cultures women frequently held strong social positions. Hereditary lineages
were often traced through the mother, and women were honored as priestesses,
healers, agricultural inventors, counselors, prophetesses, and sometimes warriors.
What happened to these apparently goddess-oriented religions? Scholars are
now trying to piece together not only the reality, extent, and characteristics of
goddess worship, but also the circumstances of its demise. A cross-cultural survey
by Eli Sagan (The Dawn of Tyranny) indicates that male-dominant social and reli-
An early image of what
gious structures accompanied the often violent shift from communal kinship appears to be the Great
groups and tribal confederations to centralized monarchies. In these kingdoms, Mother, creator and
social order was based on loyalty to and fear of the king. In Europe and West Asia, sustainer of the universe.
worship of the goddess was suppressed throughout the third and second millen- (Tel Halaf, 5th
nia BCE by invading Indo-European groups (probably from the steppes of millennium BCE.)
southern Russia) in which dominant males worshiped a supreme male deity,
often described as a storm god residing on a mountain and bringing light (seen as
the good) into the darkness (portrayed as bad and associated with the female).
In some cases, goddess worship co-existed with or resurfaced within male deity
worship. In India, the new gods often had powerful female consorts or counter-
parts or were androgynous (that is, both male and female). The Hindu Durga,
represented as a beautiful woman riding a lion, is worshipped as the blazing
splendor and power of the Godhead. In Christianity, some scholars feel that devo-
tion to Mary, Mother of Jesus, may substitute for earlier worship of the goddess.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
In Hindu tradition,
the great goddess Durga
(left) is understood as
the active principle that
can vanquish the
demonic forces. (Durga
slaying the Buffalo
Demon, India, c. 1760.)
Nevertheless, as worship of the goddess was suppressed, so was ritual partici-

pation of women. In patriarchal societies, women often became property and
were expected to be obedient to the rule of men. Although Christ had honored
and worked with women, his later male followers limited the position of women
within the Christian Church. Not only was women’s spiritual contribution cast
aside; in replacing the goddess, patriarchal groups may also have devalued the
“feminine” aspect of religion—the receptive, intuitive, ecstatic mystical commun-
ion that was perhaps allowed freer expression in the goddess traditions. Women
have been the major victims of this devaluation of the feminine, but there has
also been distrust of mystics of both sexes.
Although women are still barred from equal spiritual footing with men in
many religions, this situation is now being widely challenged. The contemporary
feminist movement includes strong efforts to make women’s voices heard in the
sphere of religion. Women are trying to discover their own identity, rather than
having their identities defined by others. They are challenging patriarchal reli-
gious institutions that have excluded women from active participation. They are
also challenging gender-exclusive language in holy texts and authoritarian mas-
culine images of the divine. Their protests also go beyond gender issues to ques-
tion the narrow and confining ways in which religious inspiration has been
institutionalized. At prestigious Christian seminaries in the United States, women
preparing for the ministry now outnumber men and are radically transforming
views of religion and religious practice. Many feminists are deeply concerned
about social ills of our times—violence, poverty, ecological disaster—and are
insisting that religions be actively engaged in insuring human survival, and that
they be life-affirming rather than punitive in approach. Feminist Christian theo-
logian Rosemary Ruether feels that the movement toward greater religious par-
ticipation by women may help to heal other fragmentations in our spiritual lives:
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
The feminist religious revolution . . . reaches forward to an alternative that can heal
the splits between “masculine” and “feminine,” between mind and body, between
males and females as gender groups, between society and nature, and between races
and classes.30
The usefulness of religions

Religions are potentially quite valuable for society and for individuals. Pioneering
work in this area was done by French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). He
proposed that humans cannot live without organized social structures, and that
religion is a glue that holds a society together. Surely religions have the potential
for creating harmony in society, for they all teach social virtues such as love, com-
passion, altruism, justice, and discipline over our desires and emotions.
John Bowker, author of the 1995 book Is God a Virus?, asserts that religions are
organized systems that serve the essential biological purpose of bringing people
together for their common survival, as well as giving their lives a sense of mean-
ing. To Bowker, religion is found universally because it protects gene replication
and the nurturing of children. He proposes that because of its survival value, the
potential for religiosity may even be genetically inherent in human brains.
Statistically, research indicates that religious faith is also beneficial for our
physical health. Research conducted by the Center for the Study of Religion/
Spirituality and Health at Duke University found that those who attend religious
services or read scriptures frequently are significantly longer lived, less likely to
be depressed, less likely to have high blood pressure, and nearly ninety percent
less likely to smoke. Many other studies have indicated that patients with strong
faith recover faster from illness and operations.
Research also reveals that prayer likewise has powerful positive effects. In a
double-blind experiment in San Francisco in which some heart patients were
prayed for but others were not, patients for whom no one was praying were five
times more likely to require antibiotics, three times more likely to develop pul-
monary edema, and twelve times more likely to require a mechanical ventilator.31
Meditation can not only help reduce mental stress but also help to develop
positive emotions, even in the face of great difficulties. Citing laboratory tests of
the mental calmness of Buddhists who practice “mindfulness” meditation, the
14th Dalai Lama points out that:
Over the millenniums, many practitioners have carried out what we might call
“experiments” in how to overcome our tendencies toward destructive emotions. The
world today needs citizens and leaders who can work toward ensuring stability and
engage in dialogue with the “enemy”—no matter what kind of aggression or
assault they may have endured. If humanity is to survive, happiness and inner
balance are crucial. We would do well to remember that the war against hatred
and terror can be waged on this, the internal front, too. 32
The twentieth-century psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900–1980) looked at the

psychological usefulness of religion for individuals. He concluded that humans
have a need for a stable frame of reference, and that religion fulfills this need. As
Mata Amritanandamayi, a contemporary Indian spiritual teacher, explains:
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Faith in God gives one the mental strength needed to confront the problems of life.
Faith in the existence of God is a protective force. It makes one feel safe and protected
from all the evil influences of the world. To have faith in the existence of a Supreme
Power and to live accordingly is a religion. When we become religious, morality arises,
which, in turn, will help to keep us away from malevolent influences. We won’t drink,
we won’t smoke, and we will stop wasting our energy through unnecessary gossip and
talk. . . . We will also develop qualities like love, compassion, patience, mental
equipoise, and other positive traits. These will help us to love and serve everyone
equally. . . . Where there is faith, there is harmony, unity and love. A nonbeliever
always doubts. . . . He cannot be at peace; he’s restless. . . . The foundation of his entire
life is unstable and scattered due to his lack of faith in a higher principle.33
Many of our psychological needs are not met by the material aspects of our life
on earth. For example, we have difficulty accepting the commonsense notion
that this life is all there is. We are born, we struggle to support ourselves, we age,
and we die. If we believe that there is nothing more, fear of death may inhibit
enjoyment of life and make all human actions seem pointless. Confronting mor-
tality is so basic to the spiritual life that, as the Christian monk Brother David
Steindl-Rast observes, whenever monks from any spiritual tradition meet, within
five minutes they are talking about death.
It appears that throughout the world man has always been seeking something
beyond his own death, beyond his own problems, something that will be enduring,
true and timeless. He has called it God, he has given it many names; and most of us
believe in something of that kind, without ever actually experiencing it.
Jiddu Krishnamurti34
Many of us seek an assurance that life continues in some form beyond

the grave. But we may also want this present life to have some meaning. For
many, the desire for material achievement offers a temporary sense of purposeful-
ness. But once achieved, these material goals may seem hollow. The Buddha said:
Look!
The world is a royal chariot, glittering with paint.
No better.
Fools are deceived, but the wise know better.35
Religions propose ideals that can radically transform people. Mahatma Gandhi
(1869–1948) was an extremely shy, fearful child. His transformation into one of
the great political figures of the twentieth century occurred as he meditated single-
mindedly on the great Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita, particularly the second
chapter, which he says was “inscribed on the tablet of my heart.”36 It reads, in part:
He is forever free who has broken
Out of the ego-cage of I and mine
To be united with the Lord of Love.
This is the supreme state. Attain thou this
And pass from death to immortality.37
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
The Golden Temple in

Amritsar, India.
Religious edifices attempt
to reflect the sacred
realm.
People long to gain strength for dealing with personal problems. Those who
are suffering severe physical illness, privation, terror, or grief often turn to the
divine for help. Agnes Collard, a Christian woman, reported that her impending
death after four painful years of cancer, was bringing her closer to God:
I don’t know what or who He is, but I am almost sure He is there. I feel His
presence, feel that He is close to me during the awful moments. And I feel love.
I sometimes feel wrapped, cocooned in love.38
Religious literature is full of stories of miraculous aid that has come to those
who have cried out in their need. Rather than what is construed as divine inter-
vention, sometimes help comes as the strength and philosophy to accept burdens.
The eighteenth-century Hasidic Jewish master known as the Baal Shem Tov
(c. 1700–1760) taught that the vicissitudes of life are ways of climbing toward the
divine. Islam teaches patience, faithful waiting for the unfailing grace of Allah.
Despite his own trials, the Christian apostle Paul wrote of “the peace of God,
which passeth all understanding.”39 Gandhi was blissful in prison, for no human
could bar his relationship with the Lord of Love.
Rather than seeking help from without, an alternative approach is to gain free-
dom from problems by changing our ways of thinking. According to some Eastern
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
religions, the concept that we are distinct, autonomous individuals is an illusion;

what we think of as “our” consciousnesses and “our” bodies are in perpetual flux.
Thus, freedom from problems lies in accepting temporal change and devaluing
the “small self” in favor of the eternal self. The ancient sages of India called it
“This eternal being that can never be proved, . . . spotless, beyond the ether, the
unborn Self, great and eternal, . . . the creator, the maker of everything.”40
Many contemplative spiritual traditions teach methods of turning within to
discover and eradicate all attachments, desires, and resentments associated with
the small earthly self, revealing the purity of the eternal self. Once we have found
it within, we begin to see it wherever we look. This realization brings a sense of
acceptance in which, as philosopher William James observed:
Dull submission is left far behind, and a mood of welcome, which may fill any place
on the scale between cheerful serenity and enthusiastic gladness, has taken its place.41
Kabir, a fifteenth-century Indian weaver who was inspired alike by Islam and
Hinduism and whose words are included in Sikh scripture, described this state of
spiritual bliss:
The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.42
Some people feel that their true selves are part of that world of light, dimly
remembered, and long to return to it. The nineteenth-century Romantic poet
William Wordsworth wrote:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.43
We look to religions for understanding, for answers to our many questions
about life. Who are we? Why are we here? What happens after we die? Why is
there suffering? Why is there evil? Is anybody up there listening? For those who
find security in specific answers, some religions offer dogma—systems of doc-
trines proclaimed as absolutely true and accepted as such, even if they lie
beyond the domain of one’s personal experiences. Absolute faith provides some
people with a secure feeling of rootedness, meaning, and orderliness in the midst
of rapid social change. Religions may also provide rules for living, governing
everything from diet to personal relationships. Such prescriptions are seen as
earthly reflections of the order that prevails in the cosmos. Some religions, how-
ever, encourage people to explore the perennial questions by themselves, and to
live in the uncertainties of not knowing intellectually, breaking through old con-
cepts until nothing remains but truth itself.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
A final need that draws some people to religion is the discomforting sense of
being alone in the universe. This isolation can be painful, even terrifying. The
divine may be sought as a loving father or mother, or as a friend. Alternatively,
some paths offer the way of self-transcendence. Through them, the sense of
isolation is lost in mystical merger with the One Being, with Reality itself.
The negative side of organized religion

Tragically, religions have often split rather than unified humanity, have oppressed
rather than freed, have terrified rather than inspired. Institutionalization of
religion is part of the problem. As institutionalized religions spread the teachings
of their founders, there is the danger that more energy will go into preserving the
outer form of the tradition than into maintaining its inner spirit. Max Weber
(1864–1920), an influential early twentieth-century scholar of the sociology of
religion, referred to this process as the “routinization of charisma.” Charisma is
the rare quality of personal magnetism often ascribed to founders of religion. Their
followers feel that these teachers have extraordinary or supernatural powers.
When the founder dies, the center of the movement may shift to those who turn
the original inspirations into routine rituals and dogma.
There is also the danger that power may devolve to those who have charisma
but no genuine connection with divine wisdom. Since the human needs that reli-
gions answer are so strong, those who hold religious power are in a position to
dominate and control their followers. In fact, in many religions leaders are given
this authority to guide people’s spiritual lives, for their wisdom and special access
to the sacred is valued. Because religions involve the unseen, the mysterious,
these leaders’ teachings may not be verifiable by everyday physical experience.
They must more often be accepted on faith and it is possible to surrender to
leaders who are misguided or unethical. Religious leaders, like secular leaders,
may not be honest with themselves and others about their inner motives. They
may mistake their own thoughts and desires for the voice and will of God. Some
people believe, however, that the most important thing for the disciple is to sur-
render the ego; even an unworthy leader can help in this goal simply by playing
the role of one to whom one must surrender personal control.
Religions try to help us make ethical choices in our lives, to develop a moral
conscience. But in people who already have perfectionist or paranoid tendencies,
the fear of sinning and being punished can be exaggerated to the point of neuro-
sis or even psychosis by blaming, punishment-oriented religious teachings. If
people try to leave their religion for the sake of their mental health, they may be
haunted with guilt that they have done a terribly wrong thing. Religions thus
have the potential for wreaking psychological havoc on their followers.
Another potentially negative use of religion is escapism. Because some reli- The existential loneliness
gions, particularly those that developed in the East, offer a state of blissful con- some feel is hauntingly
templation as the reward for spiritual practice, the faithful may use religion to depicted by the
sculptures of Alberto
escape from their everyday problems. Psychologist John Welwood observes that Giacometti, such as
Westerners sometimes embrace Eastern religions with the unconscious motive of his Walking Man,
avoiding their unsatisfactory lives. He calls this attempt “spiritual bypassing”: c. 1947–48.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Spiritual bypassing may be particularly tempting for individuals who are having
difficulty making their way through life’s basic developmental stages, especially
at a time when what were once ordinary developmental landmarks—earning
a livelihood through dignified work, raising a family, keeping a marriage together—
have become increasingly difficult and elusive for large segments of the population.
While struggling with becoming autonomous individuals, many people are
introduced to spiritual teachings and practices which come from cultures that assume
a person having already passed through the basic developmental stages.44
Because religions may have such a strong hold on their followers—by their fears,
their desires, their deep beliefs—they are potential centers for political power. When
church and state are one, the belief that the dominant national religion is the only
true religion may be used to oppress those of other beliefs within the country.
Religion may also be used as a rallying point for wars against other nations, casting
the desire for control as a holy motive. Throughout history, huge numbers of people
have been killed in the name of eradicating “false” religions and replacing them
with the “true” religion. Rather than uniting us all in bonds of love, harmony, and
mutual respect, it has often divided us with barriers of hatred and intolerance.
In our times, dangerous politicized polarizations between religions are increas-
ing in some areas, albeit cooling off in others. Some of the most worrisome con-
flicts are pitting Christians and Jews against Muslims to such an extent that some
have predicted a catastrophic “clash of civilizations.” No religion has ever sanc-
tioned violence against innocent people, but such political clashes have given a
holy aura to doing just that, posing a grave threat to life and peace.
This is not the time to think of the world in terms of superficial, rigid distinc-
tions between “us” and “them.” It is the time when we must try to understand
each other’s beliefs and feelings clearly, carefully, and compassionately, and bring
truly religious responses into play. To take such a journey does not mean forsak-
ing our own religious beliefs or our scepticism. But the journey is likely to
broaden our perspective and thus bring us closer to understanding other mem-
bers of our human family. Perhaps it will bring us closer to Unseen Reality itself.
Angels Weep
Wherever there is slaughter of innocent men, under the blight of expediency and compromise,
women, and children for the mere reason that they wherever it be—in Yugoslavia or Algeria, in Liberia,
belong to another race, color, or nationality, or were Chad, or the beautiful land of the Sudan, in Los
born into a faith which the majority of them could Angeles or Abuija, in Kashmir or Conakry, in
never quite comprehend and hardly ever practice Colombo or Cotabato—there God is banished and
in its true spirit; wherever the fair name of religion Satan is triumphant, there the angels weep and the
is used as a veneer to hide overweening political soul of man cringes; there in the name of God
ambition and bottomless greed, wherever the humans are dehumanized; and there the grace and
glory of Allah is sought to be proclaimed through beauty of life lie ravished and undone.
the barrel of a gun; wherever piety becomes Dr. Syed Z. Abedin, Director of the Institute
synonymous with rapacity, and morality cowers for Muslim Minority Affairs45
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Suggested reading
Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, second edition, Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1968. Brilliant leaps across time and space to trace the hero’s
journey—seen as a spiritual quest—in all the world’s mythologies and religions.
Campbell, Joseph with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, New York: Doubleday, 1988. More
brilliant comparisons of the world’s mythologies, with deep insights into their common
psychological and spiritual truths.
Capra, Fritjof, The Tao of Physics, third edition, Boston: Shambhala, 1991. A fascinating
comparison of the insights of Eastern religions and contemporary physics.
Carter, Robert E., ed., God, The Self, and Nothingness—Reflections: Eastern and Western, New
York: Paragon House, 1990. Essays from major Eastern and Western scholars of religion
on variant ways of experiencing and describing Ultimate Reality.
Eliade, Mircea, Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary Sheed, Lincoln, Nebraska:
University of Nebraska Press, 1958, 1996. A classic study in beliefs, rituals, symbols, and
myths from around the world.
Ferguson, Kitty, The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion and the Search for God, New
York/London: Bantam Books, 1994. A wide-ranging, perceptive analysis of the
implications of scientific research for religious beliefs.
Hick, John, An Interpretation of Religion, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
A leading philosopher of religion offers a rational justification for seeing the major world
religions as culturally conditioned forms of response to the great mystery of Being.
King, Ursula, Women and Spirituality: Voices of Protest and Promise, second edition,
University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. Excellent
cross-cultural survey of feminist theology and spiritual activism.
Lincoln, Bruce, Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11, Chicago and
London; University of Chicago Press, 2003. Thought-provoking examination of the
rhetoric of religious extremists and the interactions of politics, culture, and religion.
Marty, Martin E. and R. Scott Appleby, The Fundamentalism Project, 5 volumes, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1991–2000. Scholarly analyses of fundamentalist
phenomena in all religions and around the globe.
McCutcheon, Russell T., Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the
Politics of Nostalgia, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Critique of the
comparative study of religions as isolated phenomena without social and historical
contexts.
Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy, second edition, London: Oxford University Press, 1950.
An important exploration of “nonrational” experiences of the divine.
Paden, William E., Interpreting the Sacred: Ways of Viewing Religion, Boston: Beacon Press,
1992. A gentle, readable introduction to the complexities of theoretical perspectives on
religion.
Sharma, Arvind, ed., Women in World Religions, Albany, New York: State University of
New York Press, 1987. Analyses of the historic and contemporary place of women in
each of the major religions.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Shinn, Larry D., ed., In Search of the Divine: Some Unexpected Consequences of Interfaith
Dialogue, New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987. Scholars from various religions
present a tapestry of understandings of the Sacred Reality.
Stone, Merlin, When God was a Woman, San Diego, California: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1976. Pioneering survey of archaeological evidence of the early religion of
the Goddess.
Ward, Keith, God, Chance and Necessity, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1997. A leading
Christian theologian critiques scientific theories that deny the existence of God.
Ward, Keith, The Case for Religion, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2004. An attempt to
justify and define religion in historical contexts and also contemporary understandings.
Key terms
myth A symbolic story expressing ideas about reality or spiritual history.
mysticism The intuitive perception of spiritual truths beyond the limits of reason.
gnosis Intuitive knowledge of spiritual realities.
profane Worldly, secular, as opposed to sacred.
sacred The realm of the extraordinary, beyond everyday perceptions, the supernat-
ural, holy.
atheism Belief that there is no deity.
agnosticism Belief that if there is anything beyond this life, it is impossible for humans
to know it.
ritual Repeated, patterned religious act.
symbol Visible representation of an invisible reality or concept.
Study questions
1 List ten and describe two modes of encountering Unseen Reality.
2 Describe major positive and negative ways of understanding Unseen Reality.
Discuss sacred/profane, immanent/transcendent, theism/monotheism/polytheism/
monism/nontheism, incarnations, atheism, agnosticism, and phenomenology.
3 Analyze how the “Descendants of the Eagle” story can be seen to be meaningful as
symbol, myth, allegory, and ritual. Refer to the ideas of Jung and Campbell.
4 What new views of religious texts have been brought to light by the historical–critical
method? What are its problems and benefits?
5 Contrast older scientific materialism with recent views of science and religion. Discuss
Feuerbach, Freud, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, absolute certainty, Hubble, Bohm, Einstein,
and chance in creation.
6 How has understanding the ancient goddess traditions affected modern views of women
in religion?
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0
Refer to Pearson/Prentice Hall’s TIME Special Edition: World Religions magazine for
these and other current articles on topics related to many of the world’s religions:
• The Religious Experience: Birth and Childhood; The Legacy of Abraham; Mohandas Gandhi
• The Impact of Religion: Cult Shock; Relaxing in a Labyrinth; Will Politicians Matter?; Essay—God
Is Not On My Side. Or Yours.
Chapter 1 describes the history of, and elements common to, the earliest forms of religious
expression in human history, and asks the reader to consider why we have religions. For
further research in this area, use the tools available to you in Research Navigator:
As you investigate basic religions, consider this question: “What are the origins of religious belief?”
• Ebsco’s ContentSelect: Search in the Religion and Anthropology databases using
terms such as “animism,” “magic,” “taboos.”
• Link Library: Search in the Religion database under the categories: “Religious Theories
and Thought” and “Expressions and Characteristics of Religion.”
• The New York Times on the Web: Search in the Religious Studies and Anthropology/
Archaeology databases for current articles on related topics.
ISBN: 0-536-98811-0

Chapter 1 - Religious Responses

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Chapter 1 - Religious Responses

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Modes of encountering Unseen Reality

Some religions try to

[The “flash of illumination” brings] a state of glorious inspiration, exaltation,

A sense of the presence

Though ineffable, the nature of genuine religious experience is not unpre-

Understandings of Sacred Reality

Buddhism is sometimes referred to as

The concept of God as

Salutations to the One without colour or hue,

Salutations to the Impenetrable,

Worship, symbol, and myth

ness. Group rituals may be conducted by priests or other

Descendants of the Eagle

Absolutist and liberal interpretations

Historical–critical study of scriptures

The encounter between science

The Hubble space

claims of knowledge derived from such sources as divine revelation or illumi-

Women and the feminine in religions

may be related to the suppression of early female-oriented religions by later male-

Nevertheless, as worship of the goddess was suppressed, so was ritual partici-

The usefulness of religions

The twentieth-century psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900–1980) looked at the

Many of us seek an assurance that life continues in some form beyond

The Golden Temple in

religions, the concept that we are distinct, autonomous individuals is an illusion;

The negative side of organized religion

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi